The core of J.G. Herder's philosophy of nationalism lies in the conviction that human creativity must be embedded in the particular culture of a communal language. While he acknowledged that this cultural particular must be integrated into a more universal humanity, he insisted that each culture should preserve its incommensurable distinctiveness. He also called for a new method of enquiry regarding history, one that demands empathetic sensitivity toward the uniquely individual while realizing that there are few gains without losses. (...) F.M. Barnard demonstrates that Herder, despite his innovative work on the idea of nationality, was fully aware of the dangers of ethnic fanaticism, but also of the hazards of what is now known as globalization, recognizing that these must be tempered by a sense of universal humanity. Barnard shows that Herder anticipated modern theories of the dynamics of cultures and traditions through the problematic interplay of persistence and change and that his speculations on cultural and political pluralism, on language as a democratic bond, and on the possible fusion of communitarian and liberal dimensions of public life remain relevant to contemporary debates. (shrink)

Most scholars think not. But in this pioneering book, John H. Zammito challenges that view by revealing a precritical Kant who was immensely more influential than the one philosophers think they know.

About the philosophy of Giambattista Vico, 1668- 1774 and Johann Gottfried Herder, 1774-1803.

Herder is often criticized for having embraced cultural relativism, but there has been little philosophical discussion of what he actually wrote about the nature of the human species and its differentiation through culture. This book focuses on Herder's idea of culture, seeking to situate his social and political theses within the context of his anthropology, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, theory of language and philosophy of history. It argues for a view of Herder as a qualified relativist, who combined (...) the conception of a common human nature with a belief in the importance of culture in developing and shaping that nature. Especially highlighted are Herder's understanding of the relativity of virtue and happiness, and his belief in the impossibility of constructing a single best society. The book will appeal to a wide range of readers interested both in Herder and in Enlightenment culture more generally. (shrink)

In this book, Rachel Zuckert provides the first overarching account of Johann Gottfried Herder's complex aesthetic theory. She guides the reader through Herder's texts, showing how they relate to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European philosophy of art, and focusing on two main concepts: aesthetic naturalism, the view that art is natural to and naturally valuable for human beings as organic, embodied beings, and - unusually for Herder's time - aesthetic pluralism, the view that aesthetic value takes many diverse (...) and culturally varying forms. Zuckert argues that Herder's theory plays a pivotal role in the history of philosophical aesthetics, marking the transition from the eighteenth-century focus on aesthetic value as grounded in human nature to the nineteenth-century focus on art as socially significant and historically variable. Her study illuminates Herder's significance as an innovative thinker in aesthetics, and will interest a range of readers in philosophy of art and European thought. (shrink)

The anthropological sensibility has often been seen as growing out of opposition to Enlightenment universalism. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) is often cited as an ancestor of modern cultural relativism, in which cultures exist in the plural. This article argues that Herder’s anthropology, and anthropology generally, are more closely related to Enlightenment thought than is generally considered. Herder certainly attacks Enlightenment abstraction, the arrogance of its Eurocentric historical teleology, and argues the case for a proto-hermeneutical approach which emphasizes (...) embeddedness, horizon, the usefulness of prejudice. His suspicion of the ideology of progress and of associated theories of stadial development leads to a critique of cosmopolitanism and, particularly, of colonialism. But a comparison with a central Enlightenment figure like the natural historian Buffon (1708-88) reveals shared anthropological assumptions: human beings are characterized by the flexibility of their relationship to their environment, and by their ability to transmit and receive social knowledge. Herder’s critique of progress is thus an unstable one: culture [Kultur] as the process through which humanity develops can also be called Enlightenment [Aufklärung]. Herder’s definition of culture is much closer to a unitary Enlightenment model of civilization than is frequently suggested. Herder’s relativism is thus open to question: he holds on to certain universal criteria for transcultural judgements. This reassessment of Herder’s place in Enlightenment anthropology raises questions of contemporary relevance regarding cultural relativism on the one hand, and modernization and globalization on the other. (shrink)

While the last several decades have seen a renaissance of scholarship on J. G. Herder (1744?1804), his moral philosophy has not been carefully examined. The aim of this paper is to fill this gap, and to point the way for further research, by reconstructing his original and systematically articulated views on morality. Three interrelated elements of his position are explored in detail: (1) his perfectionism, or theory of the human good; (2) his sentimentalism, which includes moral epistemology and a (...) theory of moral education; and (3) his theism, which deepens and justifies these other elements. (shrink)

lniciado como un movimiento crítico de la modernidad, el Sturm und Drang alemán propuso una concepción distinta del humano, que exigía una renovación de la razón en armonía con la totalidad de las facultades humanas en favor del desarrollo de la individualidad. De esta manera se centralizaba la cualidad creadora del ser humano, sin subordinar el desarrollo de las demás facultades humanas. En este trabajo se analiza la reinterpretación del mito de Prometeo en el trabajo de tres personalidades: el filósofo (...) Johann G. Herder, el literato Johann W. von Goethe y el compositor Ludwig van Beethoven. Del primero, se examina su teoría del genio, explicada por medio de la figura de Shakespeare; del segundo se aborda el lugar de Prometeo en la obra del poeta; mientras que del tercero se analiza su tercera sinfonía, Heroica. Al final, se concluye que, en lostres pensadores, la figura del titán Prometeo representa ese espíritu rebelde que, rechazando a los dioses, encamina todos sus actos hacia el engrandecimiento del ser humano y de la humanidad. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, naturalism can be described as a philosophical position or set of positions stating that nature is all there is and/or that philosophy, instead of relying on supernatural entities like God, can borrow all its explanatory tools from the sciences. It may seem surprising to search for its early representatives in a Protestant Enlightenment theologian such as Johann Gottfried Herder. But Rachel Zuckert deploys an impressive set of arguments to state her case and explain the premises of (...) class='Hi'>Herder's naturalism and its philosophical fruitfulness for his aesthetics.The book, in two parts, contains seven chapters. Part 1 is a systematic reconstruction of the theoretical claims of Herder's aesthetics. Part 2... (shrink)

This chapter examines the sculptural aesthetics of Johann Herder and Chinese Daoism. Herder’s thesis that sculpture presents “forms in which the living soul animates the entire body” might have changed the way Europeans viewed the plastic arts, but Daoism had already discovered this “truth” two millennia earlier. What is common to both Herder and Daoism is the argument that sight inherently falls short when it comes to knowing the possibility of human experience. As sight lacks the tactile (...) sensation of touch, and sculpture is an artform created by the hands, it falls to spirit to convey what our eyes cannot feel and our hands cannot see. What the sculptor shapes is thus not the human imagination but the spirit of Nature, a shaping that in reality never departs from the hidden ground of the soul. (shrink)

The fifth chapter of _Experience Embodied_ is devoted to Herder’s theory of cognition and the epistemic merits of the capacity for ‘sympathy’, or ‘empathy’ – what Herder calls _Einfühlung_, and which Waldow renders more accurately as ‘affective immersion’. I situate Waldow’s reading of Herder as a member of the epistemological tradition within the debate on Herder’s relationship to the Enlightenment. Waldow’s reading, I contend, is congruent with the view of Herder as an Enlightenment, rather than (...) anti-Enlightenment, figure. I focus on what Waldow calls ‘the problem of the conceivability of difference’ (Waldow 2020, 185) and how she charts Herder’s proposed method of Einfühlung and the need for ‘affective immersion’ to address this problem. However, I also identify three potential problems, which Waldow does not address, that can arise when _Einfühlung_is taken too far: the first is that it may lead to relativism, and thus to incoherence; the second is reductionism, which can eliminate, rather than draw attention to, difference – thereby achieving the opposite goal; while the third is that relying solely on _Einfühlung_as a method can lead us into error, as it is speculative and lacks an external truth criterion. (shrink)

An exploration of the meaning and role of the concepts of empathy and sympathy in Herder’s thought, showing that the two concepts permeate his entire philosophy.

Der auf Kants kritischer Philosophie fußenden Philosophengeneration galt Herder als hoffnungslos anachronistischer, vorkritischer Philosoph, dessen Denken für das eigene philosophische Programm keine Relevanz zukomme. Das im folgenden dokumentierte Projekt geht demgegenüber von der Hypothese aus, daß Herder in die Vorgeschichte der Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus gehört, daß er Vorläufer und Weggenosse der nachkantischen Philosophengeneration war. Der vorliegende Band versammelt Arbeiten, die zur Begründung und Diskussion dieser Auffassung in unterschiedlicher Weise beitragen: es geht um die Konturierung der für diese (...) Thematik relevanten Aspekte von Herders eigenem Denken, um die Erschließung der gemeinsamen philosophischen und wissenschaftshistorischen Grundlagen des Herderschen Denkens und der Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, nicht zuletzt geht es um die Erarbeitung der Rezeption von Herders Philosophie in der nachkantischen Philosophengeneration. (shrink)

The article which is presented here includes an analysis of concept of “care” which mostly has found itself a place in history of philosophy in different forms. Even though thinkers who gave a place to this concept in their works, the main interest is about what Herder and Heidegger said. It has been tried to show how concept of “care” is understood throughout the history of philosophy. Lastly, it has been tried if there is a possible and genuine interpretation.

English summary: Johann Gottfried Herder played a central role in the emergence of aesthetics and art history in the eighteenth century. His was not only an avid reader and critic of important contemporaries, but also made essential contributions to the possibilities of art and art theory. This volume is illuminated by contemporary art discussion and the many facets of debate around Herder and the emergence of aesthetics and art history, from his early writings in the 1760s and 70s, (...) to this later works. French description: Johann Gottfried Herder spielt eine zentrale Rolle fur die Entstehung der Asthetik und der Kunstgeschichte, die beide zu den grundlegenden geistesgeschichtlichen Neuerungen des 18. Jahrhunderts gehoren. Er war nicht nur ein aufmerksamer Leser und Kritiker der wichtigsten Autoren, die sich mit dieser Materie befassten, wie etwa Winckelmann, Lessing oder Baumgarten, sondern hat selbst grundlegende und umfassende Beitrage geschrieben, die immer wieder aufs Neue die Moglichkeiten und Grenzen der Kunst, der Kunstwahrnehmung und der Kunsttheorie ausloten. Der hier vorgelegte Band leuchtet vor dem Hintergrund der zeitgenossischen Kunstdiskussionen die vielen Facetten der Auseinandersetzung Herders mit der entstehenden Asthetik und Kunstgeschichte aus, beginnend mit seinen Schriften, Kritische Walder' und, Plastik' aus den 1760er und 1770er Jahren bis hin zu seinen spateren Werken. (shrink)

Charles Taylor's influential exposition of Hegel made the doctrine of expressivism of central importance and identified Herder as its exemplary historical advocate. The breadth and generality of Taylor's use of ?expressivism? have led the concept into some disrepute, but a more precise formulation of the doctrine as a theory of meaning can both demonstrate what is worthwhile and accurate in Taylor's account, and allow us a useful point of entry into Herder's multifaceted philosophy. A reconstruction of Herder's (...) overall philosophical position, centred around a refined theory of what this paper labels ?Herderean expressivism?, reveals a naturalistic, teleological metaphysics. This metaphysics fulfils the Hegelian aim of providing what Dieter Henrich has called a ?feedback loop? between ontology and epistemology. Exploring Herder's expressivism, therefore, helps further the case for his decisive impact on Hegel's philosophy. Herder's methodological naturalism, however, represents an obstacle to Hegel's absolute idealism. (shrink)

At the first and most basic level this work is a close reading of Herder's early essay "Uber den Fleiss in mehreren gelehrten Sprachen" (On Diligence in Several Learned Languages) of 1764.

Claas Cordemann stellt im interdisziplinären Diskurs mit der germanistischen und philosophischen Herderforschung den Theologen Herder ins Zentrum und zeigt ihn als einen Denker von Rang, der die philosophische und theologische Debattenlage ...

Constitutional patriotism has been criticized for providing too thin an identity as the ground for common citizenship. Answering this criticism, Habermas recently stressed the role of affective attachments in creating constitutional patriotic bonds. Still, an account of the type of imagination that could foster such post-national affective attachments is lacking. Drawing on Herder's conception of political culture, I argue that constitutional patriotism requires a modern form of mythology. This would include narratives that shape people's imaginative capacity to see their (...) own culture as a vulnerable and fallible part of a plural mankind and as a free and equal contributor to the global advancement toward humanity. In contrast to ideological mythology, an enlightened use of myth would engage the interactive and communicative potential of poetic images in ways that shape a common feeling of humanity. In short, Habermas’ constitutional patriotism requires supplementing the power of law to create bonds between people. This can be done through the cultivation of imaginative engagements with foreign others. Such imaginative engagements would shape good dispositions that are conducive to tolerance, peace and justice. This addition also allows Habermas’ argument for constitutional patriotism to better answer the communitarian accusation of supranationalism. (shrink)

Constitutional patriotism has been criticized for providing too thin an identity as the ground for common citizenship. Answering this criticism, Habermas recently stressed the role of affective attachments in creating constitutional patriotic bonds. Still, an account of the type of imagination that could foster such post-national affective attachments is lacking. Drawing on Herder's conception of political culture, I argue that constitutional patriotism requires a modern form of mythology. This would include narratives that shape people's imaginative capacity to see their (...) own culture as a vulnerable and fallible part of a plural mankind and as a free and equal contributor to the global advancement toward humanity. In contrast to ideological mythology, an enlightened use of myth would engage the interactive and communicative potential of poetic images in ways that shape a common feeling of humanity. In short, Habermas’ constitutional patriotism requires supplementing the power of law to create bonds between people. This can be done through the cultivation of imaginative engagements with foreign others. Such imaginative engagements would shape good dispositions that are conducive to tolerance, peace and justice. This addition also allows Habermas’ argument for constitutional patriotism to better answer the communitarian accusation of supranationalism. (shrink)

Introduction Herder's status within German intellectual history has largely rested on the premise that he, along with his friend Johann Georg Hamann, ...

Thirteen scholars offer new essays exploring the question at the heart of J. G. Herder's thought: How can philosophy enable an understanding of the human being not simply as an intellectual and moral agent, but also as a creature of nature who is fundamentally marked by an affective openness and responsiveness to the world and other persons?

Johann Gottfried Herder initiated the modern disciplines of philosophical anthropology and cultural history, including the study of popular culture. He is also remembered as a sharp critic of colonialism and imperialism. But what types of social, economic and political arrangements did Herder envision for modern European societies? Herder and Enlightenment Politics provides a radically new interpretation of Herder's political thought, situating his ideas in Enlightenment debates on modern patriotism, commerce and peace. By reconstructing Herder's engagement (...) with Rousseau, Montesquieu, Abbt, Ferguson, Möser, Kant and many other contemporary authors, Eva Piirimäe shows that Herder was deeply interested in the potential for cultural, moral and political reform in Russia, Germany and Europe. Herder probed the foundations of modern liberty, community and peace, developing a distinctive understanding of human self-determination, natural sociability and modern patriotism as well as advocating a vision of Europe as a commercially and culturally interconnected community of peoples. (shrink)

In the course of developing these historical points, this book also shows that Herder and his tradition are in many ways superior to dominant trends in more ...

This paper investigates the relationship between linguistic expression and human reason in Herder’s Treatise on the Origin of Language. I argue that additive theories of human language, which contend that the linguistic capacity is in principle separable from the other cognitive faculties of the linguistic being, cannot be brought into agreement with Herder’s distinctly transformative account of human language and reason. For Herder, the transformation of our sensible faculties through language is required in order to guarantee the (...) unity of human cognition, and hence reason itself is understood as fundamentally linguistic. This positing of a strong unity between language and reason makes Herder an important, if still under-appreciated, precursor of the twentieth-century linguistic turn. (shrink)

Herder is usually considered to be one of the mayor sources of the aesthetics of empaty. The present contribution aims at offering a brief rewiew of some main places in Herder aesthetical theory and at reconstructing the genesis of the family of concepts including fühlen, Gefühl, Mitfühlen, Familiengefühl, in order to understand their relationship with regard to the theory of knowledge, the aesthetics, the politics.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1955.

Johann Gottfried Herder is a towering figure in modern thought, but one who has hitherto been severely underappreciated. Michael Forster seeks to rectify that situation by exploring the full range of his ideas, and showing their enormous impact in philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and comparative literature.

Als Philosoph, Literat, Prediger und Pädagoge gehört Herder zu den bedeutendsten Vertretern der Weimarer Klassik. Diese aktuelle und kenntnisreiche Biografie bringt Leben und Werk Herders einem breiteren Publikum nahe.

Some of Herder's most striking ideas stemmed from his early evaluation of German literary publicity, which to his mind stood in stark contrast to conditions in the sociable world. Such a predicament bespeaks the importance of considering the relationship between printed text and lived sociability in the Enlightenment. By charting the heady twists and turns in his intellectual development from 1765 to 1769, this essay treats the young Herder in what for him became an aesthetically charged field between (...) the two. The public which he came to envision would be manifest to the senses, at least to the extent that it might be by the reader of print, but it also amounted to a surrogate for the more tangibly sensual experience of face-to-face community. (shrink)

L'Essai sur l'être, traduit ci-dessous pour la première fois en français, fut rédigé par Herder en 1763-1764, pendant ses années d'études à Königsberg, à l'écoute de Kant. Reprenant et discutant certains des arguments développés par Kant dans ses conférences et écrits précritiques consacrés à la métaphysique, Herder pose les bases philosophiques de son œuvre future. L'étude du texte permet de réévaluer la thèse, jadis avancée par Dilthey, selon laquelle le futur protagoniste de Jacobi dans le débat sur le (...) spinozisme infléchit alors la pensée vers un « panthéisme esthétique » dont Hölderlin, Schelling et Hegel se feront plus tard les hérauts: le chemin suivi par la philosophie en Allemagne, après Kant, fut d'abord, effectivement, celui de l'esthétique — mais seulement parce que et dans la mesure où cette discipline fut comprise comme la « science du mode de connaissance et d'exposition sensible » (A. G. Baumgarten). Der Versuch über das Sein, hier erstmals in französischer Übersetzung vorgelegt, wurde von Herder in den Jahren 1763-1764 verfaßt, also während seiner Königsberger Studienjahre, als er regelmäßig die Vorlesungen Kants hörte. In der Aufnahme und in der Auseinandersetzung mit bestimmten Argumenten, die Kant in denjenigen seiner vorkritischen Vorlesungen und Schriften entwickelte, die der Metaphysik gewidmet sind, schuf Herder die philosophischen Grundlagen seines zukünftigen Werkes. Die vorliegende Deutung des herderschen Textes führt zu einer Neubewertung der seinerzeit von Dilthey vorgetragenen These, derzufolge dieser (neben Jacobi) zukünftige Hauptakteur im Pantheismusstreit das philosophische Denken in Richtung auf einen « ästhetischen Pantheismus » gebeugt habe, dessen Herolde später Hölderlin, Schelling und Hegel geworden wären. Der Weg der deutschen Philosophie nach Kant war tatsächlich derjenige der Ästhetik — allerdings nur dann, wenn diese Disziplin als die Wissenschaft, die das Sinnliche wahrnimmt und darstellt (A. G. Baumgarten), verstanden wird. (shrink)

Über Johann Gottfried Herder -- Herders Biograph Rudolf Haym -- Die Epoche der Aufklärung --.

Herder's Naturalist Aesthetics, by ZuckertRachel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. 276.

Through a detailed study of Herder's Enlightenment thought, especially his philosophy of literature, Kristin Gjesdal offers a new and sometimes provocative reading of the historical origins and contemporary challenges of modern hermeneutics. She shows that hermeneutic philosophy grew out of a historical, anthropological, and poetic discourse in the mid-eighteenth century and argues that, as such, it represents a rich, stimulating, and relevant engagement with the potentials and limits of human meaning and understanding. Gjesdal's study broadens our conception of hermeneutic (...) philosophy - the issues it raises and the answers it offers - and underlines the importance of Herder's contribution to the development of this discipline. Her book will be highly valuable for students and scholars of eighteenth-century thought, especially those working in the fields of hermeneutics, aesthetics, and European philosophy. (shrink)

One of the anticipations of this Congress, namely, that of all the world's philosophical traditions address the 'problems of human life, civilization, and residence on earth,' cannot be accomplished by insisting upon the means and prescriptions of any one tradition. In this paper I address the theme of the Congress by considering the views of Johann Gottfried Herder and Hans-Georg Gadamer on education and history. In spite of attacks on his religious loyalties, Herder supported what may today be (...) called pluralism. Having studied history and having watched history in the making of one of its darkest moments, Gadamer also saw the future of the humanities in the global conversation. To educate humanity, I conclude, philosophy should first attempt to understand the existential conditions of human life. (shrink)

Johann Gottfried von Herder is one of the most important German philosophers of the eighteenth century, who had enormous influence on later thinkers such as Hegel, Schleiermacher and Nietzsche. His wide-ranging ideas were formative in the development of linguistics, hermeneutics, anthropology and bible scholarship, and even today they retain their vitality and relevance to an extraordinary degree. This volume presents a translation of Herder's most important and characteristic philosophical writings in his areas of central interest, including philosophy of (...) language, philosophy of mind, philosophy of history and political philosophy, as well as his general philosophical program. An introduction sets the writings in their historical context and examines their philosophical achievement. (shrink)

Herder: Philosophy and Anthropology is an important and refreshing contribution to the growing literature in English on the philosophy of Johnann Gottfried Herder. Anik Waldrow and Nigel DeSouza have brought together an impressive array of contributors—a number who are well-established within Herder scholarship and others newer to his thought—to produce an interesting collection of essays exploring Herder's philosophical anthropology.The implications of Herder's attempt to place the human agent at the core of philosophy is a broad (...) theme, with the collection offering reflections on his metaphysics, his philosophy of language, his philosophy of history, his philosophy of science, his hermeneutics, as well as the role... (shrink)